Interculturality, Identity, and Decoloniality

This paper focuses initially on the findings of research undertaken by colleagues-researchers from different countries. Then, the authors explore the postcolonial intercultural challenges from the Abya Yala point of view. The relationship with aboriginal and ancestral peoples is very relevant for understanding power and knowledge in historical processes. The contemporary globalizing world faces new challenges intensified by international connections, by sociocultural movements, and now, by pandemic context. These circumstances of greater interconnectivity and interdependence require each group to reflect and consider their own limits and thresholds in intercultural relationship with others and ecological priorities. The concept of “thought bordering” is discussed outlining its ability to interrogate the modern idea of culture as unique and universal. While greater interconnectivity offers the opportunity for multiple paradigms to emerge, it can also close off chances for mutual recognition and for solidarity if approached without thoughtful engagement. Thought bordering offers us the opportunity to facilitate different ways of being–feeling–thinking–acting, thus promoting an ontological shift that will enable respectful engagements with communities, societies, and ecologies. In this perspective, one is learning from the ancestral peoples about “well-living,” cultivating reciprocity, integrality, complementarity, and relationality in social and ecological relations.